County gets 22 more psychiatric beds
As promised, the state's Department of Health and Human Services has added 22 inpatient psychiatric beds to Clark County's pool, something health officials say should help reduce the number of mentally ill patients being held in Las Vegas area hospitals.
The new beds, located inside Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services' old psychiatric hospital at 6161 W. Charleston Boulevard, raise the number of public inpatient psychiatric beds in Southern Nevada to 238.
The beds were activated on Monday, said Stuart Ghertner, director of Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services.
"These are beds that were at the old hospital,'' he said. "That hospital was licensed for 75 beds but vacated once Rawson-Neal opened.''
The beds originally were scheduled for activation Jan. 1 to coincide with the end of a contract between the state and West Care, which had been providing 20 to 25 crisis beds to the mental health department in Southern Nevada. Staffing issues delayed the beds by about a month, health officials said.
West Care is a nonprofit based in Las Vegas that provides social services to indigent and low-income Nevadans, including mental health care.
The 22 beds have a staff of 43 and are open 24 hours a day, according to the state's Department of Health and Human Services.
Even before the new beds became available on Monday Ghertner said he'd already seen progress this year in terms of transitioning the mentally ill from hospital emergency rooms and into appropriate care. He credits Southern Nevada Health District's renewed focus on more crisis prevention, a new urgent care system and better coordination among hospitals and the mobile crisis unit.
Ghertner said the average number of mentally ill held in Las Vegas-area hospitals in January 2007 was 49 daily.
During the month of January this year the average number of mentally ill in area emergency rooms was 50.5.
"So the number is just 1.5 more than in January of this year from last year. But, keep in mind, last January we had an additional 30 observational beds than we had this year,'' Ghertner said, referring to the West Care beds.
